Talladega: Casey Mears preview

Casey Mears and No. 42 Texaco/Havoline Dodge
Texaco/Havoline Team Facts:
* Standings: Casey Mears and the Texaco/Havoline
team finished 20th at Phoenix International Raceway, a career-best finish
for Mears at the 1-mile ...

Casey Mears and No. 42 Texaco/Havoline Dodge

Texaco/Havoline Team Facts:

* Standings: Casey Mears and the Texaco/Havoline
team finished 20th at Phoenix International Raceway, a career-best finish
for Mears at the 1-mile track. Mears and the team remain 10th in the
NASCAR NEXTEL Cup standings for the third straight week. In 2005, seven
of the 10 drivers who were in the top 10 following Phoenix qualified for
the Chase for the NEXTEL Cup.

* 2005 vs. 2006: Mears sat 26th in the standings in
2005 following the eighth racing of the season, 16 spots from his current
10th-place position. He completed 2135 laps out of 2691 (79 percent)
after Phoenix in 2005 and has completed 2647 laps out of 2695 (98
percent) this season.

* Talladega Superspeedway: Mears will be making his
seventh NEXTEL Cup start at Talladega Superspeedway this weekend. He
finished eighth twice at the 2.66-mile tri-oval, both finishes came in
2004. Mears and the Texaco/Havoline team finished second in their last
restrictor-plate race at the season opener in Daytona, a career-best
finish for Mears.

* Chassis: Crew chief Donnie Wingo and the
Texaco/Havoline team will take chassis #006 this weekend for the
Aaron's 499. The No. 42 team also ran this chassis at Talladega
last season where it scored second and 12th-place finishes.

Casey Mears Quotes:

"We're taking a different car to Talladega than we ran at
Daytona in February. It's actually the car Jamie (McMurray) ran so
well with at Talladega last year. Daytona and Talladega are actually
quite a bit different. Daytona is more of a handling track so you can
bring something that's a little bit faster to Talladega.

"I'm not sure about the new softer bumper this weekend. I
know they want to get rid of guys slamming people, and I think they did
when they had the meeting at Daytona. It was one of the cleanest races
I've seen in a long time. I feel the majority of the crashes are
caused not by the guy trying to bump draft, but the guy in front trying
to block the driver that has a run on him.

"I'm optimistic about going to Talladega, but I'm
optimistic about wherever we go now. I feel like we're capable of
winning races and I think we showed that we can win at the restrictor
place tracks with our finish in Daytona. We've just got to stay
focused, and I think we'll be fine. The past few weeks have been
disappointing, so hopefully we can get back to the form we were in at the
start of the season."